The Birsa Munda High School of Panposh, Rourkela, won the Under-17 Nehru Cup Hockey Tournament in the girls’ section against KIIT School, Bhubaneswar, by smashing the opponents11-0 in the final match at Panposh Hockey Hostel on Sunday. The Birsa Munda girls’ team will qualify for the Under-17 section of the All-India Nehru Cup this year. Boys below 17 years of Birsa Munda High School also qualified to play in the Under-17 category of Nehru Cup Tournament after beating Town High School, Sundargarh, by 2-1 goals in the final match at Panposh hockey hostel on Monday. Dillip Tirkey, hockey star and MP, Rajya Sabha handed over the prizes.

Tennis tourney

Assam boy Abhinansu Borthakur won his first singles title in the AITA-OTA 50K Men’s Ranking Tennis Tournament hosted at the SOA Sport Complex in Bhubaneswar. He defeated S.D. Prajwal Dev (Karnataka) 6-2, 6-4 in the final.

The best performance for Odisha was by Chinmay Pradhan, who lost 4-6, 3-6 to the runner-up Dev in the semi-finals.

Earlier, Odisha boys Avilash Mishra and Nishant Kumar won the boys’ doubles title in the AITA Championship Series U-16 Tennis Tournament on Andhra University campus in Vishakhapatnam.

The duo was the second seed of the tournament and proving their worth, Avilash and Nishant upset top seed pair of Adil Kalyan and Rahul Shankar from Karnataka with a scoreline of 4-2, 5-4 (7-5) in the final.

Trainees of Bhubaneswar-based SS Tennis Academy, Avilash and Nishant earlier beat AP combination of K. Sandeep Kumar and N.R. Sainath 8-1 in the quarterfinals and then got the better of Andhra opponents Taathagat Charan Timath and Siddharth S. Gowda 4-0, 4-1 in the semi-finals..

Checkmate

Rajesh Nayak of S.C.S. College (Puri) and Sradhanjali Jena of Ravenshaw Junior College (Cuttack) won the boys’ and girls’ individual titles respectively in the Plus Two Inter-College Chess Tournament, which concluded at J.K.B.K. College in Cuttack. Nayak and Jena topped the table with five points each.

Kalinga Bharati Residential College won the team championship, while host J.K.B.K. College finished runners-up. Baivab Mishra (S.C.S. College), Anil Kumar Palai (K.B.R.C.), Satya Ranjan Sahoo (Cuttack City College) and Avijit Behera (J.K.B.K. College) along with Rajesh Nayak and Sradhanjali Jena qualified to take part in the All-India Plus Two Inter-College Championship to be held at East Godavari next month.

Football fun

In the Inter-District Club Championship-2013 that concluded at Baripada, Mayurbhanj recently, Birla Tyres (Balasore) emerged champions defeating Independent Sporting Club (Mayurbhanj) 1-0 in the cliffhanger final at Baripada Stadium.

Binit Nayak scored the all-important goal in the 44th minute. The top four finishers of the tournament qualified for the All-India Kalinga Cup Football Tournament to be held from November 1 to 10. Apart from the finalists, the other two teams in this league are Government Sports Hostel (Cuttack) and Friends and Friends Club (Bhubaneswar). Odisha failed to qualify for the semi-finals after a 7-2 washout by Mizoram in their third and last Group-B league match of the 49th Junior National Football Championship (Tier-I) for B.C. Roy Trophy at Birsa Munda Stadium in Ranchi.

Odisha finished with four points while Mizoram qualified for the semi-finals with 12 points. Earlier, Odisha beat Haryana 2-0 in their opening match but were held to a goalless draw in the next match by Uttar Pradesh. Sujit Tirkey and Mukesh Minz had scored the two goals against Haryana.

Ace shooters

Odisha Rifle Association has sent a team of five shooters from the state for the third edition of Gun for Glory at Balewadi in Pune last week.

Well-known shooter Gouri Mohanty and Deepak Mishra are taking part in the 10-metre air rifle. The other team members will take part in the 10-metre air pistol NR and 10 metre air rifle segments of senior and junior men and women segments, said secretary of the association Hari Pattnayak.

Cricket champs

In the finals of the district-level blind cricket tournament, the Cuttack team emerged champions by beating the Koraput team. Cuttack won the toss and elected to field.

Koraput scored 158 for 8 wickets in 18 overs with national team batsman Sukharam Majhi being the top scorer with 38 off 21 balls that included a sixer and five fours. Cuttack scored 161 in 15.4 overs with help of Lalu’s 68 off 54 balls and Bikash’s 54 from 51 balls and won the match by seven wickets. Six teams from various districts of Odisha had taken part in the tournament.

The other four teams included Bhubaneswar, Keonjhar, Baragarh and a junior team of Odisha. Lalu won the man of the match award while Sukharam emerged the man of the series in B3 category and Kalia pradhan (in B1category).